Falcón, a former Chávez loyalist turned critic, condemned the placement of almost 13,000 pro-government stands near polling stations where voters scanned their government-issued “Fatherland Cards” in the hopes of winning prizes promised by Maduro. He also said his team had received over 140,000 claims of “assisted voting” and complaints from over 90,000 poll witnesses who were barred from accessing polling stations.

The recently created coalition of opposition parties, Democratic Unity, expelled Falcón in late February when he decided to run contrary to the majority decision to boycott the election after the government barred the two strongest contenders from running and decided to move elections from the traditional December date, first to April and finally to May.

This is a special issue of Today in Latin America, which is on a break but will resume its normal schedule on the first Monday of June.

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